My son, Alex, and I needed a cheaper place to live—fast! Four years after my divorce I still didn’t have my life in order and things were more difficult than ever.
Rent was by far my biggest problem. I had a heart condition that kept me from accepting a full-time job, and the string of part-time jobs that I had just wasn’t cutting it. Nothing I tried seemed to be working.
You know it’s up to you to solve this problem, I admonished myself as I wrote out yet another rent check I could barely cover. Once, I had thought I could solve any problem. All I needed was a plan, I always told myself. Where there’s a will there’s a way.
Well, my plans weren’t working these days. I couldn’t even make ends meet! That night when I lay in bed the only thing I could see was a stack of bills growing ever larger. “God,” I cried out, “I’m out of ideas. Help me.” I didn’t like to ask for help, not even from God. So I added, “Just show me what you want me to do and I’ll do it!”
A few days later I was still waiting for God to tell me what to do when I called to schedule a doctor’s appointment. The secretary told me that Sandy, the nurse practitioner, had an unexpected opening in her schedule. I told her I’d be over right away.
“So, how are things going in your life?” Sandy asked when I got there.
Usually I never shared any of my problems with others. It was too much like asking for help. But this time all of my troubles as a single mother trying to find low-cost housing came spilling out of me.
“I got divorced last year myself,” Sandy told me. “I’ve been praying to find the right roommate for myself and my two daughters.”
A few months later my son and I moved into Sandy’s big farmhouse with her daughters and their horses, chickens, dogs and cats. Now I know why I blurted out my troubles to Sandy that day. I was being reminded that there’s no problem I have to solve alone.
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